Do you find, as a Buddhist, that your cultivation of Right Understanding, Right Intention, and your practice of meditation makes it easy for you to practice metta, or kindness, towards people who would annoy you?

In response to my previous question about practicing / non-practicing Buddhists here at Dhamma Wheel, I got a reply which said:

"Non-violence and self control is what buddhists train too. When there's no aversion, no dislike or "self". You won't intend to hurt someone else since you think you and others is a "whole"."

So, do you find that practicing Buddhism makes it much easier to respond with tolerance and kindness to situations which would arouse anger and hostility in most people?

Hello, I am not actually a Buddhist, and I know only some very limited basics about Buddhism. I'd like to know a bit more and to ask a few questions, if that's OK.

Hi, there are no guarantees for us worldlings (non-enlightened people) because we have accumulated anger for a long, long, long time, and the anger arises in response to frustrated desires which we have also accumulated for a long, long, time. But there is a move in the right direction, gradually, gradually, and then one day you realize you haven't lashed out in anger for ages, and that builds your confidence, and the progress intensifies. That's my experience anyways. But I'm always aware that there will almost certainly be one of my old road rage incidents, the accumulated tendency still lies lurking. But moving in the right direction is great!

Apart from what Phil said, I find that developing samadhi (concentrating the mind) helps to keep anger in check as well as not let it arise in the first place- so this is quite a helpful thing. This effect is intensified if you were to develop metta (loving-kindness) meditation immediately after developing samadhi with some breathing meditation (Mindfulness of breath - anapanasati).

However all these are just temporary measures. Ultimately we can only get rid of anger completely if we go down the path to enlightenment - passing the stages of stream entry, once-returner and non-returner stage, that latter stage will find you have completely removed the causes of anger from your mind permanently.